Bullpen struggles erase Buxton's big game

MINNEAPOLIS -- Byron Buxton was right back at it with a tape-measure blast and a five-star diving catch, but the Twins’ stretched-thin bullpen couldn’t make his heroics hold up.

While Minnesota’s offense has found a bit of a stride following a difficult start, the Twins are still in search of consistency among their high-leverage bullpen options -- a fact that reared its head once again on Tuesday night. After Taylor Rogers allowed a pair of runs in the ninth to draw the Rangers even, Minnesota had to turn to the inexperienced Brandon Waddell for extra innings, leading to a 6-3 loss in 10 innings at Target Field.

The Twins fell to 0-6 in extra innings this season.

“Any loss like this is tough, but when you have a bunch in the first month to start the year, it’s especially hard, and we’ve played a lot of games where we’re playing winning baseball,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’re going into the last inning or two ahead, sometimes well ahead, and we haven’t been able to win those ballgames.”

The Twins carried a 3-1 lead into the ninth, but Willie Calhoun hit a solo blast off Rogers -- lefty-on-lefty -- to close the gap to one. Josh Donaldson’s fielding error opened the door even more, and following a ground-ball single and sacrifice bunt, Isiah Kiner-Falefa lifted a sacrifice fly to shortstop Andrelton Simmons that traveled only 189 feet to tie the score.

Waddell entered for the 10th and allowed a homer and pair of RBI doubles, capping the Rangers’ comeback.

Minnesota has been outscored, 17-1, in the ninth inning this season, and 11-2 in the 10th.

“We have to win those ballgames,” Baldelli said. “We just have to. If you’re going to succeed and go out there and play well and put everything into it and be ahead going into the eighth and ninth inning, you've got to find a way to come through.”

With Alex Colomé continuing to work through his early-season struggles and no longer an option in high-leverage situations, the Twins’ bullpen core is down to only three: Rogers, Tyler Duffey and Hansel Robles. Tuesday’s loss highlighted how important it is for the Twins to get Colomé back into form.

When J.A. Happ lasted 5 1/3 innings, the Twins had to stretch both Robles and Rogers beyond one inning -- with Rogers working for a second straight game. Rogers has been considerably less effective throughout his career when pitching without rest (4.01 ERA) than with rest (2.81 ERA).

Then, with a trio of lefties due up in the span of four batters for the 10th, Baldelli was in a bind with Caleb Thielbar unavailable after having pitched each of the last two days, and Jorge Alcala having experienced extreme career left-right splits, with a .325 career OPS against him by righties and a 1.178 OPS off him by lefties.

In an ideal world, that 10th might have gone to Colomé, who has traditionally been stingy against lefties. But with the Twins moving him out of high-leverage situations, that domino effect percolated all the way to the inexperienced Waddell.

“We’re not just going to send someone out there because they've been around a little longer or they’re a little more experienced,” Baldelli said. “We’re going to pitch the guys that we think have the best chance of getting us outs and we’re going to challenge our guys to do that.”

That cost the Twins another standout performance from Buxton, who added a tape-measure blast against former teammate Kyle Gibson and a five-star diving catch as chants of “M-V-P” rained down with renewed force.

In his first look at Gibson, Buxton turned on a belt-high sinker and crushed it an estimated 433 feet to left-center for a two-run blast, his ninth of the season, which moved him into a tie with Shohei Ohtani and J.D. Martinez for the American League lead.

He then laid out in the seventh for a diving catch to rob David Dahl, a snag measured at five-star difficulty, with a catch probability of 25 percent. As the sinking line drive threatened to fall in, Buxton used a great jump -- eight feet above average -- as he covered 54 feet for the catch in left-center.

“He’s playing with a lot of confidence, and you can see it,” Happ said. “You kind of watch the replays, you see his eyes, like, he knows he’s going to make those plays out there, which is wild, the closing speed he’s got to get there.”